Carlito Dalceggio is truly a contemporary artist, totally of this moment and intentionally transcending strict definitions of art and commerce. His work—a visual language spanning painted tarps, sculpture, video, installation, to public art murals-- reflects the seamless ease in which he moves between genres and cultures all in the service of creating the mythology of now.
Carlito’s colorful world is at once folkloric and futuristic. Working out of his signature black sketchbooks and pop up studios from Mexico City, Istanbul, to Paris he is in constant rotation around the globe collecting inspiration as both a local and a nomad. Carlito is heavily influenced by modern and ancient rituals such as Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico, whirling dervishes in Turkey, Persian calligraphy, beat poets, the pursuit of myth in art history, cobra movement, modernists, theory of the Duende, and jazz innovators such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
As part of his practice he leaves behind murals, sculptures, painted temples, and totems symbolically creating a new borderless reality where art is not a product, but a shamanic means of expressing the universe. Part renaissance bohemian, part prolific visionary, Carlito’s frontier is inclusive, inviting in seekers, pilgrims, and the curious. His mission is to transform the world. Born in Montreal, Canada Carlito studied graphic design at the University of Quebec. He soon began creating happenings, including an interactive circus, Circo de Bakuza and a street theater “Mystic Supermarket.” He collaborated with The Cirque du Soleil for several years and was the first artist to be featured on a Canadian coin.
More recently, his social experiments have grown to include the Caravan of Light art camp at Burning Man, a freedom temple sculpture-installation on the historic Plaza Santo Domingo, in Mexico City, a mural for the APEC summit in Vladivostok, Russia and a mural involving children living in the Rio de Janeiro favelas. At the Borusan Art Foundation in Istanbul, he created along with artist Mercan Dede, a labyrinth multi- media exhibition over 6 floors, 3 months, and 80 000 visitors, proposing the democratization of spirituality with amongst other things, telephones on the floor connecting visitors to Rumi and a Buddha sculpture made of feathers. In 2018 he was invited to paint the sails of Infinity the boat that sailed to the Arctic to plant the Flag of Planet Earth on the ice caps to raise awareness for climate change.
In 2017 he was invited by the Mana Contemporary Art Centre, in New York to open a studio, which he converted into an art laboratory.. Carlito sees painting as a ritual of liberation and has developed a series of performances that he did in 2018 during Art Basel Miami Beach for Mana Contemporary and at Art With Me in Tulum, Mexico. In May 2019 Carlito will paint a giant canvas while accompanied by the 80 piece Borusan classical orchestra in Istanbul.
“Mythologia Libre” is Carlito’s most recent project. It’s an installation vision-exhibition in New York City presenting his futuristic shamanic world of Guernica vision quests, totems, calligraphies for peace, and experimental videos-- a manifesto for the liberation of the spirit.